Wednesday, October 19, 2005
9:50 PM
How do I even begin to describe this utter, divine joy that I derived from (just) a hurried reading of C.S Lewis' Till We Have Faces? It is so romantic, so enlightening, and so rich. So much effort and time has been tenderly invested into the careful refining of the narrative so as continually surprise us with its subtle twists and turns, and yet come full circle to a complete (yet very much open-ended) close at the end.
The novel is primarily a retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche, but added with a 5-tonne truck full of Lewis' ideas on love, suffering, and the divine. It was written as a narration from an extremely ugly woman (a hobgoblin, as called by her very own father), the sister of Psyche, Orual. Lewis' sensitivity to the female psyche would've made Arthur Golden and his Geisha look like some hermaphroditic abomination.
Orual finds out one fine day that Psyche, whom she so loved, had married a god, when all along it was believed that she had been 'devoured' by the said god on the holy mountain. So Orual tries to save her from the mountain.
What gradually unfolds is "an instance, a 'case' of human affection in its natural condition, true, tender, suffering, but in the long run tyrannically possessive and ready to turn to hatred when the beloved ceases to be its possession." (http://www.montreat.edu/dking/lewis/TILWEHAV.htm)
All of us has, or has been loved, loves, or is loved, and will or will be loved. All the angsty stuff about love that we've written, said or thought in our lives is testament to how ambivalent love can sometimes be; a selfless gift, a selfish possession; a boundless field of freedom, a horrible prison of envy; a sublime joy, a pitiful sorrow. The line between love and hatred is often so thin.
What is love that we should torment ourselves and suffer injustices for its sake and why? Not some big philosophical explanation or a callous theoretical calculation. But to experience, to feel, (and some say to know Him, who claims to be Love itself) is the answer by itself.
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Actually I only have one CS Lewis book, the full Chronicles of Narnia (squeezed into one single book) which I just bought yesterday. The other one is about 12 of his books squeezed into one behemoth of a tome, including stuff like Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, etc. But it's not mine. Heh, I buy one for you la?
# posted by 
: 9:05 AM
: 9:05 AM
Love is the opiate of the masses. Wait, that was religion, wasn't it? Ah well. By your reckoning love is more like ecstasy.
P.S. Superb images conjured.
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P.S. Superb images conjured.
# posted by : 6:47 PM
: 6:47 PM